We use microwaves to cast aluminum from 3D printed [PLA] objects. This gives us the ability to cast high quality 6040 aluminum pieces using a 3D printer and commercially available consumer microwaves.

We manufacture microwave safe kilns for melting aluminum. We create microwave transparent molds that allow us to burn out plastic without heating the mold itself there[by] creating a quicker method of accomplishing the lost PLA process.

Julia‘s process is being developed as a contribution to the larger FOSSCar initiative, which aims to use an open source production and development model and recycled materials including refurbished and repurposed off-the-shelf technology to fabricate a road-worthy car.

“Our system uses consumer microwave units to perform burn-out of PLA from molds, and a second microwave to liquify aluminium, to be poured into the mold. 3d printer inspired mechanics will move the aluminium from the microwave, into the target mold under human control across the network, so that there is no risk to the person operating the machine.

“Lost PLA is usually dangerous, and time consuming. with this, we can go from [PLA] printed part to cast aluminium part in 3 hours!”

The dev team for HacDC’s awesome, incubated Project Byzantium (PB) has ported their “ad-hoc mesh networking for the zombie apocalypse” platform to the Raspberry Pi. As the 1st milestone of their recent ISC grant award, they’ve started a parallel repository for ByzPi, their PB port for ARM, currently for Raspbian:

We opted to use Raspbian because it seems to be the more popular of the two [commonly installed Raspberry Pi Linux distributions]. Also, the packaging process for Debian was better understood than that for Arch Linux by the Project Byzantium team. We’re in a rapid development cycle so we wanted to hit the ground running and accomplish as much as possible in the available time before the first milestone.

Approach on the 16th St side of the building. Look for the red doors. We are on the third floor. Follow the signs to our space after signing in with the guard. Before visiting unannounced, call to see if anyone is at the space.Phone: 202-556-4225 (HACK)